IASA Board of Directors

IASA Board Members are professionals representing a range of various educational backgrounds, activities, countries. The variety of contributions is intended to promote the application of the dynamic-maturational model of attachment and adaptation (DMM) to helping children, families, couples and individuals in many different contexts (for example health care, social policies, legal systems), to encourage research using DMM theories and assessments, and to help the diffusion, discussion and modification of DMM theory and data in academic, professional and community contexts.

Co-Chair

Rodolfo de Bernard, MD (Italy)

Prof. Dr. Rodolfo de Bernard, specialized in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, is the founder and director of the Istituto di Terapia Familiare di Firenze, which today is the leader institute of a network (AITF) of 50 institutes all over Italy. Rodolfo is Past President of SITF, Charter Member of AFTA, Ordinary Member of SIPPR, founding member of EFTN, then EFTA, Board EFTA TIC and NFTO now General EFTA President, founding member and Past President of A.I.M.S. and of the EUROPEAN FORUM of Family Mediation, Past President of FIAP, Past President of EAP, Past President and Honorary President of AITF and since Jan 2015 President and co chair of the IASA.
He has taught and given workshops and seminars in many Universities in Italy and abroad and has given seminars on his clinic and his training model in 25 countries all over the world. Further he is Member of the Board of severals journals, founded in 1992 "MAIEUTICA", is Editor of AIMS Journal “Mediazione Familiare Sistemica”, has written three books, about 300 papers in journals, conferences and chapters in books.

Co-Chair & Founding President of IASA

Patricia McKinsey Crittenden, Ph.D. is a developmental psychopathologist who developed the Dynamic-Maturational Model (DMM) of attachment and adaptation. She earned a B.A. at American University (1966), a M.Ed. (Mental Retardation and Emotional Disturbance) at the University of Virginia (1969), and a Ph.D. (Psychology) at the University of Virginia (1983), studying under Mary D. S. Ainsworth. Her work with Mary Ainsworth culminated in the DMM. She completed a Senior Post-Doctoral Fellowship on sexual abuse at the University of New Hampshire (1992) with David Finkelhor. She has been on the faculties of the Universities of Virginia, Miami, Helsinki, and Bologna and Edith Cowan University in Australia. She held the Beverley Professorship at the Clark Institute of Psychiatry in Toronto in 1994 and was appointed Distinguished Professor at San Diego State University in California. In 2004, she was given a Career Achievement Award by the European Family Therapy Association. She is currently Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

She pioneered video-feedback intervention for maltreating mothers in the early 1970’s, designed and implemented a family support center for low income families, trained as both a behavioral and family systems therapist, became the Director of the Miami Child Protection Team, and has consulted to family courts in several countries.

Finally, she has developed a life-span series of seven assessments of attachment. Among these is the CARE-Index which was developed under Mary Ainsworth’s guidance and with consultation from John Bowlby. She has published more than 100 empirical papers and chapters, as well as several books: Crittenden (2008), Raising Parents: Attachment, Parenting, and Child Safety; Crittenden & Landini (in press), The Adult Attachment Interview: Looking Behind the Mind’s Curtain; Crittenden & Dallos, Attachment & Family Systems Therapy (McGraw-Hill); Crittenden & Claussen, (Eds., 2000), The Organization of Attachment Relationships: Maturation, Culture, and Context.

Secretary

Lane Strathearn MBBS FRACP Ph.D. (USA / Australia)

Dr. Strathearn is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Iowa, and a developmental pediatrician at the Center for Disabilities and Development at the University of Iowa Stead Family Childnre's Hospital. His research and clinical work focuses on maternal neglect and the neurobiology of mother-infant attachment. He is also interested in the long-term effects of child maltreatment on cognitive and emotional development, and early childhood factors that may help to protect against abuse or neglect. This includes longitudinal studies of women and infants, examining mothers’ brain and hormonal responses to infant face cues using functional MRI and behavioral observation (see Pediatrics 2008;122(1):40-51). One recent study demonstrated that adult attachment strategies, as determined from the DMM Adult Attachment Interview, were associated with maternal brain and oxytocin responses (Neuropsychopharmacology 2009;34(13):2655-66). His most recent grant will support research into maternal brain responses of cocaine addicted mothers, and the potential role of intranasal oxytocin to enhance maternal caregiving. A native of Brisbane, Australia, he is also the father of 7 children.

Treasurer

Bente Nilsen(Norway)

Bente Nilsen is a clinical child psychologist who received her training at the University of Oslo and at the Institute for Active Psychotherapy. She is currently working at the Child and Adolescent Clinic (BUP Baerum) in Asker and Baerum Hospital. She specializes in working with families from pregnancy through the preschool years. DMM is central in this work. Bente was a presenter at the 2006 World Conference on Prevention in Oslo. Bente previously worked for 12 years at the Aline Center and Clinic in Oslo. During these years she collaborated in organizing the Aline Clinic as an outpatient unit serving both the Aline center and also high risk families in the municipality of Oslo. Bente also consults with the Child Protection offices and courts in forensic work involving families with preschool children.
She has been trained in AAI, PAA, CARE-Index and SAA by Dr. Patricia Crittenden over the past 15 years. She is a reliable coder of several of these assessments and is an authorized trainer of the CARE-Index and the PAA. The DMM is central to her clinical work, in teaching and supervising psychologists and other mental health professionals. She has contributed to several research projects using DMM.

Other Directors

Clark Baim, Ph.D. (UK)

Clark Baim, PhD. is a Senior Trainer, Clinical Supervisor and Psychotherapist (UKCP, BPA) based in Birmingham, UK. He is on the faculty of the Family Relations Institute (Miami, FL. and Reggio Emilia, Italy) and runs training courses on the AAI (DMM version). He has run introductory courses focused on the DMM since 2002. He is the co-author of 'Attachment-based Practice with Adults' (Baim and Morrison, 2011, Pavilion Publishing) and other chapters and articles focused on the DMM. Clark has also written extensively on his practice in criminal justice contexts and also about his practice as a psychodrama psychotherapist and applied drama specialist in prisons. Clark works as a psychotherapist, trainer, supervisor, consultant and author, and has delivered training in 17 countries through his training company, Change Point Ltd.

Franco Baldoni, MD, Ph.D. (Italy)

Franco Baldoni is a Psychotherapist, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, teacher of “Clinical Methodology” and “Psychosomatics”, and Head of the Attachment Assessment Lab in the University of Bologna. His scientific activities focus on Clinical Psychology and Psychosomatic areas and on the study of attachment and mentalization. He is one of the founder members of IASA, the International Editor of the DMM News and the Italian Editor of Italian DMM News. He is also a reliable codifier of Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) in DMM perspective and the author of many books on psychosomatics and on attachment.

Peter Schernhardt, Ph.D. (Germany)

Dr. Peter Schernhardt is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist in southern Germany (Klinikum Südostbayern), where he is the head of a unit specialized on regulatory disorders in infants & early parent-child-psychotherapy. Furthermore he is a freelance psychotherapist for adults. In addition Peter is lecturer at the Universities of Bucharest (Romania), Innsbruck and Salzburg (Austria). Currently he is teaching at the University of Salzburg (Austria) and the Universities of Applied Sciences in Vienna (Austria) and Zurich (Switzerland). His research focuses currently on the assessment of intercultural patterns of parent-child-relations (in Eastern Europe), the capability of estimating interactions conditional of training and attachment representation, and the change of physiological markers such as heart rate activity in parent-child-interations. Since 2009 he developed and is providing numerous trainings for clinicians, social workers and child care workers concerning attachment, early childhood and high risk families in Austria and Germany. He is an authorized trainer of the Infant and Toddlers CARE-Index (ICI & TCI).

Shiqin Shen, Ph.D. (China)

Dr Shiqin Shen is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist in Daping Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China. She earned PhD in Clinical Pshchology at East China Normal University in 2014. She is appointed Distinguished Professor at Mental Health Center in Chonging in infants & early parent-child-psychotherapy. She also founded the Raindrop Psychology ＆ Parents School, worked as a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, and lecturer at parents school.She is the Board member of Chongqing Association for Health Promotion and Education.

Ad Hoc Board

Rebecca Carr-Hopkins (UK)

Rebecca is a qualified social worker with over twenty five years experience as a practitioner and manager in child protection. Since starting her private practice in 2007, Rebecca has trained extensively in the field of child and adult attachment. She has been trained in all the DMM methods of assessing attachment, teaches at the University of Roehampton on the Masters and post-graduate certificate programme for Attachment Studies and is a trainer for the Infant CARE-Index (ICI), School-age Assessment of Attachment (SAA) and Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). She also provides training on other subjects to social care and health audiences and is undertaking research on the Toddler CARE-Index (TCI).

Michele Giannotti, Ph.D. (Italy)

Dr. Michele Giannotti is a Clinical Psychologist and a Ph.D. Candidate at University of Trento (Italy), Observation, Diagnosis and Education Lab (ODFLab). His research and clinical work focuses on parenting, infant mental health and attachment across the lifespan. The focus of his current research is in attachment and adaptation in children with atypical development, particularly Autism Spectrum Disorder. He is also interested in the long-term effects of child maltreatment and adverse childhood experiences. In addition, Michele has been trained in Toddler Care-Index, School-age Assessment of Attachment and DMM-Adult Attachment Interview. He works as a lecturer of “Assessment of Attachment: methods and clinical implications” at University of Trento (Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science). Michele has also given several workshops and presentations at international conferences concerning clinical and developmental psychology.

Agnes van Wyl, Ph.D. (Switzerland)

Agnes von Wyl, Ph.D., Professor of clinical psychology, Head of Research in Psychotherapy & Mental Health at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Psychological Institute. Her fields of research interests are in the area of psychotherapy and mental health, particularly infant mental health. She is author, co-author and co-editor of several articles and books on these topics. The focus of her current research is in mother-child psychotherapy. Additionally, she works as psychoanalytic psychotherapist with mothers and their babies.

Former Board

Airi Hautamäki, Ph.D. (Finland)

Airi Hautamäki PhD is Professor Emerita of Social Psychology and Psychology at the Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki. She is a full foreign member of the Academy of Pedagogical and Social Sciences of Russia; adjunct professor in educational psychology, University of Helsinki; adjunct professor in psychological women's studies, University of Eastern Finland; licensed psychologist. Her publications has ranged from parenting (e.g., transmission of attachment across three generations; attachment, sensitivity and ADHD) and war trauma to silencing of the self and educational issues (learning-to-learn and PISA comparative studies). She has been trained in many DMM assessment methods and has been teaching Infant CARE-Index in Finland since 2008.

Andrea Landini, M.D. (Italy)

Andrea Landini, M.D., is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Modena and his training as a Cognitive-Constructivist Psychotherapist at Centro Studi in Psicoterapia Cognitiva (Firenze). His clinical practice includes psychotherapy with adults, adolescents and families, supervision of staff caring for out-of-home youth, and supervision of psychotherapy students. He collaborated with Crittenden in the development of the Dynamic-Maturational Model, publishing chapters on DMM assessment applications of the DMM treatment. He is the current director of the Family Relations Institute. He teaches the DMM and its assessment methods in Italy and internationally and teaches at several Italian schools of cognitive and family systems psychotherapy.

Nicole Letourneau, Ph.D. (Canada)

Nicole Letourneau is a Registered Nurse, PhD and Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Science. She is the author of two books including Scientific Parenting: What Science Reveals About Parental Influence published in 2013 and What Kind of Parent Am I? published in 2018, both by Toronto’s Dundurn Publishing Company, as well as more than 150 peer reviewed papers on topics ranging from parent-child relationships, child and adult mental health and child development. She is a regular contributor of opinion-editorials appearing in online and print media such as the HuffPost, Toronto Star, Winnipeg Free Press and Hill Times. As Professor in the Faculty of Nursing and Cumming School of Medicine (Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Community Health Sciences) at the University of Calgary, she holds the Alberta Children’s Hospital Chair in Parent-Infant Mental Health and is Director of RESOLVE Alberta, focused on research and education to find solutions to family violence. She leads the Child Health Intervention and Longitudinal Development (CHILD) Studies Program (www.CHILDStudies.ca) examining parenting and child development in the context of maternal depression, family violence and other toxic stressors with over $50 million in career funding. She has attained many honours including Canada’s Top New Investigator in 2006, Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2007, Awards for Research Excellence from the College and Association of Registered Nurses of Alberta in 2015 and the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing in 2017, and named a Difference Maker by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (2017). She is also President-Elect of the College and Association of Registered Nurses of Alberta and founder of the ATTACH Program.